LIVE-streamed Book Launch

My dear friend, Sheila Batacharya, is celebrating the launch of a book she co-edited about the 1997 murder of Reena Virk in British Columbia, Canada. Reena Virk was a Punjabi teen who was murdered by a group of teen girls (and one boy) she wanted desperately to be friends with.

Most of the media coverage focused on the "girl-violence" aspect of the case and all but ignored the glaring race and hetero-normative elements. The book is called Reena Virk - Critical Perspectives on a Canadian Murder and takes a closer look at some of the issues that went largely unreported in mainstream media coverage.

The book launch will be live-streamed from the Toronto Women's Bookstore tomorrow, Thursday, February 24th, from 6:30-8:30 pm EST. At 6:30 EST tomorrow, go to www.womensbookstore.com, or www.ashrouder.com. I will most definitely be watching.

Margaret Atwood on Changes in Publishing

I love this keynote address from award-winning poet and author Margaret Atwood at the Tools of Change conference. She talks about authors being the "dead moose" of publishing and says, "Authors are a primary source. Everything else in the world of publishing depends on them." She includes libraries, schools, book reviewers/bloggers, publishers, agents, printers, book cover designers, etc. in that analogy--all of whom rely, first and foremost, on authors to write books. She also says that authors are like anchovies in the food chain, and the anchovies are getting restless. Ha! She's fun, witty and engaging, and offers some great food for thought. (No pun intended! But she does use lots of food metaphors.)

Watch live streaming video from oreillyconfs at livestream.com

Nerds Heart YA

If you're a book blogger, or just an avid reader who loves YA books, please consider going on over to the Nerds Heart YA site and nominating your favourite YA title/s for their 2010 tournament. Here is the criteria, as per their website:

1. Title can have no more than 15 reviews published throughout the book blogosphere
2. Title must be either authored by or include a character within the following category: Person(s) of Color (POC), GLBT, Disability, Mental Illness, Religious Lifestyle, Lower Socioeconomic Status or Plus Size.
3. All titles must have been published between January 1 – December 31, 2010

I just nominated my first title. LOVE it.

Jazz & Jeeves?

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!! Today, being the day that it is, I just had to share this video from UK rappers, Raxstar and Sunit. It's called "Keep it Undercover," and Jeeves could totally have written it for Jazz . . .

Blog Tour, Interviews, and a Few Guest Posts

All last month and most of this month, I've been doing interviews and guest posts. And while I love doing them, I'm going to have to impose a temporary freeze. I spend quite a bit of time and energy on these posts because I put so much of myself into them, but afterward, I am simply too exhausted to access that creative side in order to write new work. So, if you'd like to do an interview or have an idea for a guest post, please ask me a few months down the road? I would love to consider the request then :).

However, if you're not sick of me like I am, here are a few links:

An Equal Place at the Table (guest post on YA lit and representation)

The Book Smugglers' review of Jazz in Love

Review of Jazz in Love at Bibliophilia (love this blog by the very awesome, very talented 16-yr-old - Maggie Desmond-O'Brien)

This month and into next, I'll be doing a blog tour with Teen Book Scene. Click on the banner above for details, or follow the posts here. I had so much fun with these - there's even a character interview on the 28th with Deesh, Jazz's mom :D.

Ari's interview for Reading in Color will be up beginning of March and I'll link to that, as well. She asks some questions no one has asked me yet about Jazz in Love.

In the meantime, happy almost-Spring, all! (Yes, I'm very hopeful. Especially as the wind howls outside my window.) Please send lots of creative writing-y vibes this way :).